October is approaching and I find myself reflecting upon years past and past Halloweens. For those of us who are parents or grandparents, we now face the increasingly daunting task of coming up with a costume for our little ones. The choices are many and sometimes confusing. Heaven forbid that we would pick out something that is no longer cool (if that term is still used) or gruesome enough.
Things weren’t always this difficult, or at least in hindsight they didn’t seem to be. I clearly remember my fifth Halloween. (For those interested, that would be almost six decades ago.) There was to be a parade on Friday afternoon, starting at the grammar school and going down the hill to a small park. I didn’t have a costume, and I came home from school upset because all of my classmates had already made plans. There was a pirate, a policeman, a ghost, and even a witch. The girl who was coming as a witch didn’t need to dress up, because we all knew she was a witch. She was the meanest girl in our class, and I had the bruises on my shins to prove it.
My mother was a very resourceful person, and with only an hour before the parade, she provided my deliverance from this dilemma. She found a large paper grocery bag in the kitchen and put it over my head. Then she cut out two holes for my eyes. Through those holes I could see her stand back and admire her handiwork.
“Momma, what am I?” I asked her.
“Robert, if any one asks, you are a potato,” she told me.
And that was that. She drove me to the school and I got out and took my place in the parade. A few people asked me what I was, and I proudly told them.
“Can’t you tell? I’m a potato.”
I couldn’t see well enough to know if they were laughing, but it wouldn’t have mattered. We started down the hill and I had a blast. Things went pretty well during that parade, though toward the end the bag slipped a little and the eye-holes shifted to one side. I walked into a fire hydrant and fell over. I think it was the witch that helped me get back up.
Now, you may be wondering how this could possibly relate to any medical issue. Well, during my contemplations of days gone by, I began to consider the state of our health care during that time. While we might long for those simpler days, we surely wouldn’t wish to be enjoying the same level of medical knowledge and treatment. Here are but a few examples.
It was during those years that my older sister contracted polio. Remember that disease? The virus was in our home and could have infected each of us. She had only a mild case, leaving her with some difficulty swallowing when she became tired, and a permanent inability to whistle. She was lucky.
Smoking was much more pervasive then. A much higher percentage of Americans smoked than do so today. In fact, physicians were even advising some of their patients to smoke because “it was good for your lungs.” Hmm. It is no wonder that this period marked the beginnings of our lung cancer and heart disease epidemics.
And while x-ray machines were in wide use, this period was decades before the advent of CT technology. Imagine this: a sixty-year-old woman presented to her physician with complaints of headache and nausea after falling and hitting her head. She had all of the symptoms and findings of a subdural hematoma. This is a collection of blood on the surface of the brain that needs to be removed if of a certain size, or if it is expanding. Today, a CT scan would quickly locate the area of the bleed and guide a neurosurgeon as he/she drained it. When I was five years old, this unfortunate woman would have been sent to the hospital where burr-holes would be drilled in her skull, searching until the blood clot was located. If she was lucky, they would find it by the third or fourth attempt.
So, while things might have seemed simpler and better those many years ago, we can be thankful for the advancements that have been made regarding our healthcare. Any way, have a happy Halloween, and good luck with finding the right costume!
Hmm, I might go down to the grocery store and see what kind of outfit I can make out of a bunch of those plastic bags.
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